Exam 2 Flashcards
What is energy?
The capacity to do work or supply heat
What is potential energy?
Stored energy
What is kinetic energy?
Active motion
What does the first law of thermodynamics state?
- Energy is conserved
- It cannot be created or destroyed
- It can be transferred or transformed
What kind of energy is thermal energy?
Kinetic
What kind of energy is potential?
Chemical
What is enthalpy?
The total energy of a molecule (the sum of potential and kinetic energy)
What is potential energy in molecules related to?
The structural arrangement of atoms or molecules
Is potential energy high or low in strong bonds?
low
Is potential energy high or low in weak bonds?
high
Breaking a strong bond ______ energy.
requires
Creating a strong bond ______ energy.
produces
Breaking a weak bond _______ energy.
produces
Creating a weak bond _____ energy.
requires
C-C and C-H have high _______ energy bonds.
potential
What is kinetic energy in relation to molecules?
molecular movement
What is kinetic energy in molecules measured as?
Temperature
What is entropy?
The amount of disorder in a group of molecules (S)
What is the second law of thermodynamics?
Total entropy increases in isolated systems
When does chemical equilibrium occur?
When the forward and reverse reactions proceed at the same time, and when the quantities of reactants and products remain constant.
When are chemical reactions spontaneous?
When they proceed without any continuous external influence, no energy is added.
Spontaneous reactions can be very ____ or very ____.
fast, slow
What does a non-spontaneous reaction rely on?
External influence (needs energy)
What does the spontaneity of a reaction depend on?
The change in potential energy (delta H) and the degree of order (delta S)
Products often have ______ potential energy than the reactants.
less
Products are _____ ordered than the reactants.
less
What are qualities of reactants?
High potential energy, more order (lower entropy)
What are qualities of products?
Low potential energy, less order (higher entropy)
What is delta H?
The change in potential energy
What is the formula for delta G?
delta G= delta H - T(delta S)
What is delta S?
Difference in entropy
What is T?
Temperature
What does delta G<0 mean?
Exergonic (spontaneous) reaction
What does delta G>0 mean?
Endergonic (non-spontaneous) reaction
What does energetic coupling do?
Allows chemical energy to be released from one reaction to drive another. Exergonic reaction allows for endergonic reaction to occur. Occurs through the hydrolysis of ATP
What type of reaction is the condensation of nucleoside monophosphates?
Endergonic (does not occur in nature), which is why ATP has triphosphates
What type of reaction is the condensation of nucleoside triphosphates?
Exergonic
What type of reaction is the synthesis of starch?
Exergonic (order is created but new molecules have stronger bonds)
What are enzymes?
A class of proteins that speed up chemical reactions
Why do all modern life forms require enzymes?
Most chemical reactions are very slow
What are the requirements for a chemical reaction to occur?
Reactants must collide in a precise orientation, the free energy of the transitional state should not be too high
How do enzymes work?
Enzymes bring substrates (reactants) together in specific positions that facilitate reactions. Substrates bind to the enzyme’s active site. Interactions between the enzyme and substrate stabilize the transition state, and lower the activation energy required for the reaction to proceed.
What is the transitional state?
The fleeting molecular configuration when old chemical bonds are breaking and new ones are building
Enzymes are _______.
catalysts
How are enzymes catalysts?
They lower the activation energy of a reaction by lowering the free energy of the transition state, they do not change delta G, and they are not consumed in the reaction
What are the steps of Enzyme Catalysis? describe them
- Initiation- reactants bind to the active site in a specific orientation, forming an enzyme-substrate complex.
- Transition state facilitation- Interactions between enzyme and substrate lower the activation energy required
- Termination- Products have lower affinity for active site and are released. Enzyme is unchanged
How does the speed of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction change with different substrate concentrations?
- Increases linearly at low substrate concentrations
- Slows as substrate concentration increases
- Reaches maximum speed at high substrate concentrations
What limits the rate of catalysis?
Enzymes can be saturated. The rate of a reaction is limited by the amounts of substrates present and enzymes available. Active sites cannot accept substrates any faster no matter how large the concentration of substrates gets.
How do physical conditions affect enzyme function?
Enzymes are proteins and have specific foldings. Enzymes function best at some particular temperature and pH. Temperature and pH affects the enzyme’s shape and reactivity.
What does the rate of enzyme-catalyzed reactions depend on? (6 things)
- substrate concentration
- enzyme concentration
- temperature
- pH
- the enzyme’s intrinsic affinity for the substrate
- enzyme regulation (competitive inhibition, allosteric regulation, enzyme phosphorylation)
The function of enzymes needs to be ______. They need to be _____ ___ and ______ __ at specific times.
regulated, turned off, turned on
What is enzyme regulation via non-covalent interactions?
Regulators do not form covalent bonds with the enzyme. Competitive inhibition and allosteric regulation (allosteric activation, allosteric inhibition)
What is competitive inhibition?
The substrates cannot bind when a regulatory molecule binds to the enzyme’s activation site
What is allosteric regulation?
The regulatory molecules do not bind to the active site, but bind in another place. This changes the shape of the molecule.
What is allosteric activation?
The active sites becomes available to the substrates when a regulatory molecule binds to a different site on the enzyme.
What is allosteric inhibition?
The active site becomes unavailable to the substrates when a regulatory molecule binds to a different site on the enzyme
What is enzyme regulation via covalent bonds?
The function of an enzyme can be altered by a chemical change in its primary structure. Phosphorylation of an enzyme.
What are the most common modifications of enzymes via covalent interactions?
The addition of one or more phosphate groups to Ser, Thr, Tyr, and His
What is phosphorylation of an enzyme?
A reversible modification to the protein’s structure with the addition of phosphate groups.
What is metabolism?
Chemical reactions that occur in a cell
Enzymes work together in _________ pathways.
metabolic
What is a metabolic pathway?
A series of reactions, each catalyzed by a different enzyme to build biological molecules.
What metabolic pathways produce ATP?
Cellular respiration and fermentation
What is cellular respiration?
A set of reactions that produces ATP using an electron
What is aerobic respiration?
The electron acceptor is oxygen. Very common and the most efficient way to produce ATP
What is anaerobic respiration?
Electron acceptor is not oxygen. Occurs only in selected prokaryotes
What is fermentation?
A set of reactions that produces ATP without oxygen and an electron transport chain ( very common as cells are often limited by oxygen availability, inefficient way to produce ATP)
How long does ATP last in cells?
30 seconds to a couple minutes
Why must cells produce ATP constantly?
ATP is unstable and cannot be stored
What does the hydrolysis of ATP often result in?
The transfer of the released phosphate group to a different molecule and formation of high potential energy bonds
How much ATP goes towards protein synthesis, membrane pumps, RNA/DNA synthesis, and other metabolic reactions?
- Protein synthesis: 33%
- Membrane pumps: 33%
- RNA/DNA synthesis: 25%
- Other metabolic reactions: 9%
How is glucose oxidized?
Through a series of carefully controlled redox reactions. Carbon atoms of glucose are oxidized to form carbon dioxide. Oxygen is reduced and forms water. The resulting change in Gibbs free energy is used to synthesize ATP from ADP and Pi
What is a redox reaction?
An electron is transferred from one molecule to another. A reduced molecule gains electrons and an oxidized molecule losses electrons. Electrons can be transferred completely or shift positions in their covalent bonds.
During respiration, carbon is ______ and oxygen in ______.
oxidized, reduced
What happens when an electron is transferred from one molecule to another in a redox reaction?
It is usually accompanied by a proton (H+). A reduced molecule gains a proton and an oxidized molecule losses a proton.
A reduction often adds ________ atoms and an oxidation often removes _________ atoms.
hydrogen x2
Why are NADH and FADH2 important molecules for cellular respiration?
They readily donate electrons to other molecules. They have reducing power and are called electron carriers. They have a lot of potential energy
What is the energy flow during respiration?
Glucose ——-> NADH and FADH2 ——–> ATP
What are the four steps of cellular respiration?
- glycolysis
- pyruvate processing
- citric acid cycle
- electron transport and chemiosmosis
Does glycolysis use or create O2?
no
What is glycolysis?
A series of 10 chemical reactions (requires 10 enzymes). Glucose is broken down into two molecules of pyruvate (carbon in pyruvate is more oxidized compared to glucose), and the potential energy released is used to make 2 ATP and 2 NADH
Where does glycolysis occur?
In the cytosol of the cell
What phases does glycolysis consist of?
An energy investment phase and an energy payoff stage
How many reactions are in the energy investment phase? The energy payoff phase?
3, 7
What happens in the energy investment phase?
2 molecules of ATP are consumed and glucose is phosphorylated twice
Once the energy investment phase is completed, have any redox reactions occurred?
no
What happens during the energy payoff phase?
Sugar is split to form two pyruvate molecules , 2 molecules of NAD+ are reduced to NADH, and 4 molecules of ATP are formed by substrate-level phosphorylation (net gain of 2 ATP)
When and where does substrate level phosphorylation occur?
It occurs when ATP is produced by the enzyme-catalyzed transfer of a phosphate group from an intermediate substrate to ADP. It occurs in glycolysis (reactions #7 and #10)
When does glycolysis occur and what does the speed of it depend on?
It occurs when the cell needs ATP. The speed of it depends on the need for ATP.
What is glycolysis regulated by?
Feedback inhibition
What is feedback inhibition?
When an enzyme in a pathway is inhibited by the product of that pathway.
When ATP is abundant in cells, glycolysis _______.
stops
How does feedback inhibition help cells when ATP is scarce?
It helps conserve glucose stores
How is the enzyme that catalyzes reaction #3 of glycolysis inhibited by ATP?
allosterically